Virtual reality media content may be presented to users (i.e., viewers) of the virtual reality media content to immerse the users into interactive virtual reality worlds that the users may experience by directing their attention to any of a variety of things being presented at the same time. For example, at any time during the presentation of virtual reality media content, a user experiencing the virtual reality media content may look around the immersive virtual reality world in any direction, giving the user a sense that he or she is actually present in and experiencing the immersive virtual reality world from a particular location and perspective (e.g., orientation, viewpoint, etc.) within the immersive virtual reality world.
In some examples, it may be desirable for an immersive virtual reality world to be based on a real-world scene. For instance, some or all of an immersive virtual reality world represented within virtual reality media content may model scenery, locations, events, objects, and/or other subjects that exist in the real world, as opposed to existing only in a virtual or an imaginary world. As such, capture devices (e.g., image and/or video capture devices such as cameras, video cameras, etc.) may be used to detect, record, and/or otherwise capture data representative of the real-world scene such that the data may be included within virtual reality media content from which a representation of the real-world scene may be generated. Unfortunately, it may be impossible or impractical to position physical capture devices with respect to the real-world scene so as to capture data from every location, orientation, field of view, etc., that may be desirable.
Moreover, even if a large number of physical capture devices were to be employed to capture data from a large number of locations, orientations, fields of view, and the like, it may be impractical and/or inefficient for all the data captured by these capture devices to be included within the virtual reality media content provided to the user. For example, data distribution limitations (e.g., network bandwidths, device decoding capabilities, etc.), significant redundancy in the captured data, data descriptive of different details of the real-world scene having different relevance to different users of the virtual reality media content at the same time, and other factors may each contribute to the impracticality and/or inefficiency of capturing and distributing the data representative of the real-world scene using large numbers of physical capture devices.